A few key steps help protect your crops through the shipment process. In a recent survey of large growers conducted by Evonik, we asked the biggest challenges associated with getting healthy plants to market. Aside from concerns about weather conditions, the main problems were transportation issues and keeping plants hydrated in transit. There are a multitude of ways to ship plants, from carts to boxes or in sleeves, in pots or bare root and in all stages of growth, from young plants to finished, in your own trucks or in a contracted shipping company’s truck. Throughout all those scenarios, there are some key things growers should keep in mind to keep plants as healthy as possible from the time they leave the greenhouse to the time they get unloaded at their final destination. Planning Ahead There are a couple of actions growers can take before the plant gets loaded onto […]

Hanging baskets make up a good portion of the greenhouse business for peak spring, so it’s vital to have a strong growing program for these products. According to recent USDA statistics, sales of certain types of hanging baskets are up across the 15 states that produce the most floriculture product. The varieties that increased in sales in 2015 over 2014 include begonias, New Guinea impatiens and a category called “other flowering and foliar,” which is good news for including unique varieties rather than petunias and geraniums. Quality From the Beginning There are a couple of keys to a successful hanging basket program, and it all begins with a healthy start and the media mix. That means inspecting plugs and cuttings prior to planting up the mixes. Media can be pre-mixed or mixed onsite by the grower, but it’s important to have the right ingredients. Bobby Barnitz, vice president at Bob’s […]

As restrictions and water availability continue to be a concern, growers have to research other options for conserving their most precious resource. Water has always been a vital resource, considering much of life on Earth — humans, animals and plants — require it to exist. However, water has become an even larger topic of concern as areas in the U.S. begin to experience extreme drought conditions and parts of the world see water resources drying up. Examples in the U.S. include Southern California, where the U.S. Drought Monitor map shows extreme and exceptional drought situations. As summer wanes, we are beginning to see drought situations crop up in Georgia and Massachusetts, as well as abnormally dry weather in other regions of the U.S. Related to drought, a 2014 report from the American Meteorologist Society Journal of Climate projected the Southwest would have an 80% risk of a decade-scale mega-drought in […]

For more than 50 years, PanAmerican Seed® has been creating exceptional flowers and vegetables, providing the highest quality seed to professional greenhouse growers, and helping gardeners around the world plant beauty in their gardens. Built on timeless classics like impatiens, petunias, pansies and snapdragons, the company continues to fine-tune these “bread and butter” products with on-trend colors, impactful performance updates, new seed technologies and production efficiencies, with the goal of improving growers’ profitability. That same commitment has opened the door to unparalleled introduction of cutting edge options like Kabloom™ calibrachoas, Megawatt™ begonias and Fuseables® seed technology.

Greenhouse Grower talked with Mary O’Connor, Global Product Manager for PanAmerican Seed™, about how she chooses those luscious Plug & Play combinations, why she has to be tough on testing them, and what she sees as the future for the combo craze. Q. What do you see as the future for combos? Is it an area you feel will become increasingly popular? O’Connor: Combinations are a very popular item at retail, and sales are still growing. Although colors and styles will change over time, combinations will definitely continue to be a popular category. Most consumers have less time to create their own and can sometimes feel less confident that they will make the right choices and be successful. Shoppers want to spend their money in a wise way, with confidence that what they choose will perform well and bring them joy! It is so helpful to have a beautiful combination ready […]

PanAmerican Seed® raised the curtain on their Plug & Play™ combo program at the Cultivate’16 show to wide acclaim. This fresh and relevant collection is built upon internal and external testing in multiple regions. Trialing in saleable sizes begins at the PanAmerican Seed research greenhouses and in outdoor Summer containers. Then every potential introduction heads out to commercial greenhouses and to real-life gardens. The result is the assurance that every one of the 50-plus Plug & Play combos available today is proven to deliver unstoppable performance from bench to store to garden. Good for growers: Easy, economical production Each Plug & Play combo is created with best-in-class seed annuals and perennials from PanAmerican Seed and sister company, Kieft Seed™. Several of the recipes include known-by-name varieties like Wave® petunias, Kabloom™ calibrachoas and Sorbet® violas, plus assorted All-America Selections perennials. Thanks to the high-quality, cost-effective seed inputs and programmable finish times, […]

In an operating environment like production horticulture that is already pushing new levels of sophistication and complexity, it may seem counterintuitive to consider adding another layer of integrated pest management such as biodiversity to the mix. But, in reality, the integration of diversity in the totality of the business environment is nothing new. Diversity Born From Innovative Thinking In the early part of the 20th century, specialization of worker roles in manufacturing processes was the genesis of the industrial revolution. Businesses realized new levels of productivity, output, cost efficiencies, and unprecedented operational scalability. Moving forward to mid- and late-century technologies, advances in chemistry and materials science created new alternatives in plastics, acrylics, and other light-weight synthetic materials with comparable strengths to metallics and glass. Electronic and computer technologies created new processes for irrigation and environmental controls. All the while, the innovations pushed the requirement for human management of these new […]

For more than 100 years scientists have known that once a plants survives a disease, it is often more resistant to other infections. It’s as if the plant’s immune system has become stronger, and actually, it has. What was not known then was how it worked, and researchers have been working on teasing out the underlying mechanism for decades. Being able to harness plants’ natural ability to defend themselves would give growers new crop protection tools, and indeed, that has already happened. There are two well-known types of induced resistance in plants, although there may be more. These two, systemic acquired resistance (SAR) and induced systemic resistance (ISR) are distinguished by the different ways in which the immune response is elicited. In addition, some plants have a localized, rapid response to invasion by certain insects, fungi or pathogens called the hypersensitive response (HR). Some Plants Have Rapid Response With the […]

Plants move, even though they don’t have muscles. They can respond to touch even though they don’t have nerves, and to differences in light and dark without having eyes. The mechanisms that make this possible are known as tropisms, growth patterns in plants in response to environmental signals. Guided by plant hormones, tropisms allow plants the ability to “move” toward favorable conditions or away from unfavorable ones, which compensates in some ways for plants’ inability to actually move. Tropisms are directional — one example is a seedling growing toward the light — and the word is derived from the Greek word trope, which means “turn.” Guided By The Light Phototropism, the response to light, is the most familiar to people. We’ve all seen plants grow toward a bright window. The first plant hormone ever identified, auxin, (also known as indole-3-acetic acid or IAA) is responsible for this response. Auxin is […]

I see one main issue facing our industry in getting more people to buy plants — we assume that the way we used to sell plants is the way millennials will want to buy them. Nothing could be further from the truth. We sell plants in small packs that you plant in a hole in your garden, with a generic label that says “blooms all season.” Millennials don’t have gardens, so they want a plant they can put on their fourth floor apartment balcony, or better yet on a shelf in their living room near a window. We give them too little information to help them be successful under those circumstances. But what we don’t realize is that if the plant dies, they feel personally responsible for killing another living thing which is so painful that they would prefer not to take the chance a second time. If we sold […]

Antje Verstl, a German visual merchandiser who has worked with many high level garden retailers in Europe, has a lot of practical, and inspirational advice on how to transform your plant yard into an exciting place to shop. Take a look at this gallery, and enjoy a visual guide from Verstl. Her book, “Eagle & Frog!,” is now available for purchase by an American market through her website.

Michigan State University is bringing together two great causes of our times — supporting vets and boosting pollinators — in its new program aimed at teaching professional beekeeping to former soldiers.

If garden retailers want to attract customers who don't think local garden stores relate to their lives, they must meet these consumers where they congregate and prove their store's relevance to their lives.

With a whopping 84% of lawn and garden sales being made by female shoppers, it's a woman's world when it comes to plant retailing. Here are some pragmatic tips on how your merchandising can cater to this important demographic.

A few months after Star Roses And Plants bought the berry plants brand from Fall Creek Nursery, it is giving the line a name more likely to appeal to consumers: Bushel and Berry. “Following the purchase of the BrazelBerries program this past May, we asked our Network Growers, garden centers, and consumers for feedback,” says Layci Gragnani, Program Manager of Bushel and Berry. “Enthusiasm was very strong for what Fall Creek had done creating and building the program, but there were naming and packaging improvements we identified. After much discussion and thought, we decided to rename and rebrand the program to Bushel and Berry.” The rebrand includes a new logo, tags, and containers, which will be available at retail in 2017. Star Roses and Plants will also build a new website for the collection, BushelandBerry.com, which will launch in January 2017. Gragnani says one of the goals of the rebrand […]

Last week, Countryside Gardens, was vandalized. The crime was preceded by a robbery a few months ago. In addition to her concern about the crimes, Countryside's owner, Tish Llaneza, worried about keeping her insurance coverage and possible rate hikes.

Calling all plant geeks! A slew of recent science journal stories are tracking breakthroughs in plant research, from learning plants have temperature sensors similar to their light sensors, to refining our understanding of flower timing, to identifying a gene related to hybrid vigor.

Living in smaller spaces has been a trend for several years, with urban centers growing, Baby Boomers downsizing, and young families opting for smaller homes (and smaller mortgages). So why isn't the industry expanding what it means to grow indoors?

Detroit-based Planterra transforms its greenhouse retail space into a garden oasis, perfect for events, every fall and winter. Its president, Shane Pliska, offers tips on how other plant retailers can make a profit with events.